Toronto's island airport debate should wait for Pearson train

There are no winners or losers yet in the debate over whether to expand the island airport to accommodate jets, but city council did do something important when they considered the issue last week: They delayed things.

The final decision on airport expansion will now be made in 2015, which coincidentally is also the year the Union Pearson Express is set to open. This is big news, because the UP Express — which will whisk travellers by rail from Pearson airport to Union Station in just 25 minutes — could erase one of the key arguments advanced by supporters of Porter Airline’s expansion plans.

This new train could leave us wondering why we ever even had this island airport debate in the first place.

When I talk to people who have jumped on board with the jets plan, they generally cite three things.

The first is that they really like the experience of flying Porter, what with the complimentary beer and snacks. They’d like to have that experience when flying to more destinations. But none of Porter’s freebies are necessarily guaranteed to last, and free booze and nuts don’t strike me as compelling reason to expand an airport runway.

The second thing supporters talk about is that flying out of the island airport is so much less stressful than flying out of Pearson, owing to the lack of crowds. This is a fair point, but I’m not sure why anyone who appreciates the crowd-free status quo would also push for airport expansion — something that would bring more crowds. It’s a contradictory argument.

Which leaves us with the most commonly cited argument in favour of island airport expansion: convenience. For many, getting to the foot of Bathurst Street is about a hundred times easier than getting to Pearson. Taking transit to the island is easy, whereas Pearson means a multi-transfer TTC trip, a pricey cab ride or making puppy-dog-eyes at a friend with a car.

And that’s why the UP Express is so important. Presuming the train is priced right — I’d suggest fares need to be less than $10 a person — this new transit connection will make getting to Pearson close to as easy as getting to the island airport. That’s a huge change.

It never made sense to talk about expanding the island airport — a scheme that brings with it potentially hundreds of millions in needed infrastructure improvements — while the government is simultaneously spending $456 million on a train to Pearson.

Before we waste any more time discussing Porter’s plans, planners need to get real-world data on how the UP Express impacts travel patterns and demand for island flights.

In other words, before we go any further with airport expansion, let’s wait for the train.